Missionary Minute...

I suggested to my husband, yesterday, that I was planning to start a project on our home that might take a while.

He looked at me like I was crazy, then gently reminded me, “Are you sure you want to start that right before the ROP holiday events?”

What had I been thinking?!  Starting Oct 31st, ministry hits a distance run of holidays through to the New Year: Fall Festival, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Not to mention 2015 budgets, goals and objective meetings to settle by the end of November.  I obviously wasn’t thinking, in these few weeks of quiet before the storm.

Have you ever gotten so used to being busy, that you cram things into the spaces where you aren’t, or is it just me?

By my work load, you’d think the still small voice of God doesn’t have a chance.

It is only in my morning devotionals, where there is a haven and a habit of stilling myself and seeking God’s will.

The “dumb” project idea happened to be on a day that I hadn’t taken the time for devotion.  And that is really about, isn’t it? Devotion, worship, a time of gratitude and new direction.

As the pace quickens into the holidays, let’s listen to God each day & thank Him.

Who was the Samaritan's Neighbor?

The scripture before the parable that describes the Samaritan asks, “Who is my neighbor?”  Yet who was it he helped?

Monica started by coming to our food bank every week.  A quiet and reserved older lady, smelling un-bathed at times,  somewhat shaped like a pumpkin.  She would struggle to walk from her home to our door with her little metal cage, hand cart on two wheels.  It held her oxygen tank & space for groceries.

She had lots of medical problems & no real friends but her Chihuahuas.  Never married with some mental issues, she had lived her life helping her parents until their deaths.  Now an old woman with no children, only dogs.

Seeking a deeper relationship, we asked Monica if she’d like to volunteer at the Food Bank helping people to sign in for food.  She jumped at the chance to help people as she was helped.  Interaction didn’t start out easy, but she learned.

God smiled, and we all learned something about Monica, too.  Her quiet reserve and patience was the perfect match for our hesitant refugees struggling with real needs and poor English. 

Monica loves them and they love her.

All this to say, a bit over a month ago, Monica fell in the alleyway she walks down to go home.  She couldn’t get up.  She tried so very hard.  She even called out two separate times to people heading to Colfax down the alley.  Only to have them skirt her and walk on by.

After over an hour in the sun, laying in gravel and losing hope, Monica heard a familiar voice speaking in Nepali. An old woman and her 8 year old grandson.  It took everything they all had, but they got Monica up and walked her home.

A week later, they worked along side our volunteers to clear out and clean up Monica’s home so that she might keep her dogs and her home from the threat of city citations.

In reaching out, Monica has learned that her neighbors are reaching back.  As she steps out in faith, giving of her time, God appears.  Even in languages we might not speak but that our hearts understand.

Relationship vs Charity

Chico called from North Carolina to share he has settled into an apartment & college in Moorsville’s “NASCAR Technical Institute” (NTI).

Chico, a kid who started in the late ‘90s attending  our youth ministry of Club House, did our teen ministry Coffee House, put himself through Lincoln Technical College with a little help from us, got his GED here at ROP, and worked hard enough that his teacher recommended him to the NASCAR Technical Institute.

What we provided in needs? Bus passes, groceries, clothing, community service hours, school supplies, tutoring, shoes, diapers, formula & baby supplies, too, when he became a father.

So was it our little bit of physical charity and his own determination that changed Chico’s life?

Honestly? No.  Even when inching forward in positive ways, Chico struggles with temptations of the world and his own flesh.

He has struggled with drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, a child at 18 with no standing to gain full custody, the death of his father, his mother’s cancer, supporting his family, his anger, frustration, and yes, even apathy or fear in doing the unfamiliar.

I think many of us can say we share some of these same weaknesses of flesh in our lives.  I know I have fallen so hard, at times in my life, that only God could pick me back up.

For Chico, it started with his relationships with everyday Christians sharing time and attention, guidance and sometimes a resource or two.  As he grew, he came to recognize Christ’s hand in his life. Now he is looking for God in all things.  Will it all be easy from now on? No, but he walks with a Savior & a body of believers who know him and love him.